Dark Horse, IDW, and Image May 2011 solicitations (collected editions)

Must have:

• Usagi Yojimbo, v. 25: Fox Hunt: Always up for the next Usagi book, although it feels like the collected editions are slipping further and further behind the comics. This collects #110-6, but the series will be almost two years ahead of that by the time this comes out in July. ($16.99; Dark Horse)

Might buy if the price is right:

• Barks’ Bear Book: On the same month as DC issues an obscure Jack Kirby collection, IDW releases a collection of Carl Barks’s obscure backups featuring Barney Bear and Benny Burro. The names aren’t promising, but it is Barks. ($34.99, ISBN: 9781600109294; IDW)
• Scary Godmother Comic Book Stories: Haven’t read any of Jill Thompson’s Scary Godmother stories; is this a good place to start? ($24.99; Dark Horse)

Might check out of a library:

• Archie’s Joke Book, v. 1: A Celebration of Bob Montana: I don’t know why they’re celebrating Bob Montana, but I am mildly intrigued. ($29.99, ISBN: 9781600109584; IDW)
• Blackjacked and Pistol-Whipped: A Crime Does Not Pay Primer: Contains a few selected stories and evidently some interesting trivia about the book itself. Could be some fascinating reading. Could be a letdown. You never know. ($19.99; Dark Horse)

Manga:

• Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Lost Adventures: Good to see the M. Night Shyamalan movie hasn’t sunk the series completely. ($14.99; Dark Horse)
• Cardcaptor Sakura Omnibus Book 2 ($19.99; Dark Horse)
• Magic Knight Rayearth Omnibus Edition ($19.99; Dark Horse)

The Rest:

• 30 Days of Night Collector’s Set ($39.99, ISBN: 9781600109652; IDW)
• Angel Omnibus ($24.99; Dark Horse)
• Angel Yearbook ($7.99, ISBN: 9781600109614; IDW)
• The Art of Amanda Conner ($24.99, ISBN: 9781600109508; IDW)
• The Art of Doug Sneyd ($39.99; Dark Horse)
• Bomb Queen, v. 6: Time Bomb ($16.99; Image)
• Choker, v. 1 ($16.99; Image)
• Creepy Archives, v. 10 ($49.99; Dark Horse)
• Creepy Comics, v. 1 ($19.99; Dark Horse)
• Dethklok: I wouldn’t be surprised if this were as good as the TV show itself, since it has stories written by the series’ creator and animation director. Also, it just feels like the kind of TV series that would translate well to the page. ($19.99; Dark Horse)
• Devil's Concubine ($19.99, ISBN: 9781600109485; IDW)
• Doctor Macabre ($17.99, ISBN: 9781600109157; IDW)
• George R.R. Martin's Doorways: Really? George R.R. Martin has reached this level of popularity? ($21.99, ISBN: 9781600109164; IDW)
• Guarding the Globe, v. 1: For those of you needing a Kirkman fix this month. ($16.99; Image)
• Gutwrencher ($19.99, ISBN: 9781600109362; IDW)
• Hellboy Library Edition, v. 4 ($49.99; Dark Horse)
• Kull, v. 2: The Hate Witch ($15.99; Dark Horse)
• Li’l Abner, v. 3 ($49.99, ISBN: 9781600109379; IDW)
• Pilot Season, v. 4: 2010 ($19.99; Image)
• The ’Breed Collection, v. 1: The Book of Genesis ($17.99; Image)
• Transformers: Foundation (17.99, ISBN: 9781600109188; IDW)
• Transformers: Rising Storm ($17.99, ISBN: 9781600109195; IDW)
• Transformers: The IDW Collection, v. 4 (49.99, ISBN: 9781600109386; IDW)
• Wormwood, v. 3 Deviant Edition ($24.99, ISBN: 9781600109263; IDW)

DC May 2011 solicitations (collected editions)

Some interesting books from DC, although the list seems a little short this month, as DC seems to have spent their time on getting Green Lantern maquettes, busts, and prop replicas to the teeming masses. But no Green Lantern TPBs. There’s a limit to their crass consumerism!

Most likely to buy:

• Showcase Presents Doc Savage: I’m a sucker for a good Showcase (or Essential, but there are no Essentials solicitied for May), and this is an intriguing one. Doc Savage’s corporate ownership means that not only was the Man of Bronze’s adventures published by both Marvel and DC but that neither company has been able to put the stories back into print. As with Rom the Space Knight, Doc Savage’s guest appearances have been left out Marvel’s Essentials (such as Essential Marvel Two-in-One, v. 1). Obviously, Doc Savage’s status changed with Conde Nast’s decision to let DC pay for the rights to create a new series; this gives readers a rare chance to see some of the character’s Bronze Age adventures. On the other hand, this is a little steep for a Showcase; $20 for 448 black and white pages isn’t the best deal ever. ($19.99)

Might eventually buy:

• Batman: Knight and Squire: Offbeat and Silver Age in a good way, from what I’ve heard. ($14.99)
• Tales of Batman: Gene Colan, v. 1: I’m always up for Bronze Age Batman, and Gene Colan seems such a natural fit for the Batman. I’m just not sure I want to spend $40 (minus Amazon / other bookseller discount) on it. (hardcover) ($39.99)

Might buy if the price is right:

• Aquaman: Death of a Prince: A Bronze Age Aquaman reprint? What in the name of Crom … ? It’s a delightfully weird choice, but what are they smoking in the reprint department? ($29.99)
• The Jack Kirby Omnibus, v. 1 Starring Green Arrow (hardcover): Cynical attempt to cash in on King Kirby’s name or a chance for Kirby fans to glimpse a rarely seen part of Kirby’s pre-Marvel work? Why can’t it be both? ($49.99)

Already read that one:

• Batwoman: Elegy: By and large, I liked it. ($17.99)
• Stuck Rubber Baby: There are a certain number of a certain type of story you have to have read to be able to convince certain people you’re not just a superhero fanboy. (I would recommend not hanging out with those people, but sometimes we don’t have that luxury.) This is one of those stories, I regret to inform you. ($17.99)

The Rest:

• Absolute Identity Crisis (hardcover): Seven issues of crap for $100. Sweet Robo Zoroaster, that’s a bold attempt at robbery. ($99.99)
• Arkham Asylum: Madness ($14.99)
• Batman: Bruce Wayne: The Road Home (hardcover): If you’re waiting for the trade paperback, it will be another year before you find out what happens when Bruce Wayne comes marching home again. ($24.99)
• Batman: Red Hood: The Lost Days ($14.99)
• Batman: The Streets of Gotham: The House of Hush (hardcover): I’m willing to bet Hush does something crazy and quotes Aristotle. (Not necessarily in that order.) Am I right? ($22.99)
• Cowboys (hardcover) ($19.99)
• Green Arrow: Into the Woods (hardcover) ($22.99)
• Justice League: Cry for Justice: If you don’t want your horrible stories in hardback form, here’s one in paperback. Because someone demanded it! (We must find them and hurt them.) ($19.99)
• Justice (hardcover) ($39.99)
• Power Girl: Bomb Squad ($14.99)
• Red Robin: Hit List ($17.99)
• Superman Chronicles, v. 9: If you’ve been following this far, you don’t need me to say anything about it. ($17.99)
• Superman: New Krypton, v. 4 ($17.99)
• Sweet Tooth, v. 3: Animal Armies ($14.99)
• The Twilight Experiment ($17.99)

Marvel May 2011 solicitations (collected editions)

Will be picking up:

• Spider-Girl, v. 1: Family Values: I’m just interested enough at the early reviews / hype to look at a repurposed, no-powers female hero that’s supposed to be “realistic.” Also to see if something can be salvaged from Araña. ($14.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-4694-0)

Might pick up eventually:

• Captain Britain, v. 1: Birth of a Legend (hardcover): This is an odd choice, unless there’s some push behind Chris Claremont or Captain Britain this month that I’m unaware of. Still, it should be interesting — Claremont work from around the time he started writing X-Men (although to be fair, it’s around the time he was writing Iron Fist). ($39.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5728-1)
• Mystique by Brian K. Vaughan Ultimate Collection: Good value for the money, and Vaughan usually doesn’t let me down. Although “Ultimate Collection” may be laying it on a bit thick.

Might pick up if the price is right:

• Rocket Raccoon: Guardian of the Keystone Quadrant (hardcover): Always nice to see Bill Mantlo stuff being collected, but his attempt to take a Beatles pun and make it into a viable character doesn’t appeal much to me. ($24.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5527-0)
• Young Marvelman Classic, v. 1 (hardcover): Let me be frank: I’m only picking this one up if the price falls to a few dollars. I don’t have any interest in Young Marvelman, although the sheer oddity of Marvel reprinting the adventures of a character invented to complete the rip off of another character who a court found was a copyright infringement makes me both confused and happy. ($34.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5504-1)

Already got one (earlier collection or original comics):

• Amazing Spider-Man by David Michelinie & Todd McFarlane Omnibus (hardcover) ($99.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5729-8)
• Emma Frost Ultimate Collection: Good news for those who dislike the digest size that the series was originally reprinted in. ($34.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5510-2)
• New X-Men by Grant Morrison Book 1 ($14.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5503-4)
• Powers, v. 1: Who Killed Retro Girl? (hardcover): Hasn’t this already come out in hardcover? I would have sworn … and Bendis swears in this one as well. ($24.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5671-0)
• Spider-Man: Hobgoblin Lives: Not one I would have thought would get reprinted — a miniseries that promised to resolve all and only ended up raising more questions (and received a lukewarm response) and three issues from a time when the Spider-Man books were winding down, waiting for Howard Mackie to be their savior. ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5512-6)
• X-Men: Age of Apocalypse Prelude ($29.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5508-9)
• X-Men: Fallen Angels (hardcover): You’re scraping the bottom of the X-barrel when your reprint program decides to turn to Fallen Angels. Not that it was unenjoyable — it had its moments — but it’s a third-tier ancillary miniseries from the X-books’ boom time. Also: should technically be New Mutants: Fallen Angels or even X-Force or X-Factor; I don’t think any of the Fallen Angels have ever been X-Men. ($29.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5530-0)
• X-Men: X-Tinction Agenda (hardcover): It took this long to get X-Tinction Agenda into hardback? That’s absurd. Not sure it’s worth $50 for thirteen issues, though. ($49.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5531-7)

Masterworks:

• Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Venus, v. 1 (hardcover) ($59.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5018-3)
• Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil, v. 2 ($24.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5050-3)
• Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil, v. 6 (hardcover) ($54.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5020-6)

The Rest:

• 5 Ronin (hardcover): Wolverine, Psylocke, Punisher, Hulk, and Deadpool as 17th century Japanese ronin. I completely missed this series when it came out, and that’s probably for the best. ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5632-1).
• Avengers: We Are the Avengers: And I am bored. ($16.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5154-8)
• Captain America & The Korvac Saga ($14.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5160-9)
• Captain America: Allies & Enemies ($16.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5502-7)
• Captain America: Man out of Time (hardcover) ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5128-9)
• Captain America: Official Index to the Marvel Universe ($24.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5097-8)
• Chaos War: Incredible Hulks ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5157-9)
• Chaos War: X-Men ($15.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5315-3)
• Deadpool Corps, v. 2: You Say You Want a Revolution (hardcover) ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-4826-5)
• Deadpool Max: Nutjob (hardcover) ($24.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-4850-0)
• Deadpool Team-Up, v. 3: BFFs (hardcover) ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5139-5)
• Deadpool: Wade Wilson’s War: Four collections for Deadpool? That’s almost as many as Captain America and Thor are each getting. And Deadpool isn’t getting a movie (yet). ($14.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-4713-8)
• Death of Dracula: Reprinting one issue that set up that X-Men vs. vampires thing, plus seven issues from
• Tomb of Dracula tacked on at the end. Yes, that seems right. ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5616-1)
• Invincible Iron Man, v. 7: My Monsters (hardcover) ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-4836-4)
• Iron Man: War of the Iron Men ($16.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-4730-5)
• Marvel Adventures Thor/Spider-Man Digest ($9.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5651-2)
• The Marvels Project: Birth of the Super Heroes ($29.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-4061-0)
• Mighty Avengers: Dark Reign (hardcover) ($44.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5669-7)
• Namor, the First Mutant, v. 2: Namor Goes to Hell ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5176-0)
• Origins of Marvel Comics ($24.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5615-4)
• Philip K. Dick’s Electric Ant: Electric! Dick! ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-4043-6)
• Punisher: In the Blood ($16.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5181-4)
• Punishermax: Bullseye (hardcover) ($24.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-4755-8)
• Spider-Man: Matters of Life and Death (hardcover): Alistair Smythe, the Marvel Comics sensation whose return everyone had been clamoring for! ($24.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5102-9)
• Spider-Man: The Extremist ($15.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5670-3)
• Super Hero Squad: A Squad for All Seasons ($14.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5217-0)
• Taskmaster: Unthinkable ($14.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5260-6)
• Thor: Lord of Asgard (New Printing) ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5087-9)
• Thor: The Trials of Loki (hardcover) ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5165-4)
• Thor: The World Eaters (hardcover) ($24.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-4838-8)
• Thor: Wolves of the North ($12.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5614-7)
• Thunderstrike: Youth in Revolt ($14.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5271-2)
• Trouble by Mark Millar (hardcover): This was roundly lambasted when it came out, and I’m sure time has not helped matters. Sexually promiscuous Aunt May is no one’s idea of a good time, no matter how good she might have looked at the time. ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5086-2)
• Ultimate Comics Captain America (hardcover) ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5194-4)
• Ultimate Comics Doomsday (hardcover): Followed by Ultimates Comics Bane? ($39.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-4776-3)
• Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, v. 2: Chameleons ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-4100-6)
• Ultimate War (hardcover) ($19.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5737-3)
• X-Men: First Class — Class Portraits ($14.99, ISBN: 978-0-7851-5559-1)